


Flowers for Eliot

by Liethe



Category: Leverage
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 18:53:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2079291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liethe/pseuds/Liethe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set just after The Lonely Hearts Job. </p>
<p>Eliot leaves before Nate or Hardison can thank him for buying flowers for Sophie and Parker, so Hardison finds another way to say thank you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flowers for Eliot

The day after they took down that sweetheart ring, Eliot turned up to the briefing for their next job with a flower and a bemused look on his face. It was only the years they'd spent together that allowed the others to identify his expression as 'bemused'; like most of Eliot's other expressions it could easily be mistaken for grumpiness by the uninitiated.

He was the last to arrive; Parker was already there, cooing over her carnivorous plant, which she'd named Susan and refused to leave at home, while Hardison worked on his laptop, and Nate and Sophie sat together on the sofa. Sophie held a mug of tea in her hands, breathing in the steam with a contented, if sleepy, smile. From the way she snuggled up to Nate, Eliot had a good idea of why she needed some extra caffeine to get going that morning.

“Oh hey, you got a flower too!” Parker said when she saw Eliot come in. She put Susan carefully down on the table before going over to take a closer look.

“It's a crocus,” She declared, after she'd examined it for a minute. Eliot raised an eyebrow.

“You know about flowers?”

“I know about _valuable_ ones,” Parker corrected, as if that should have been obvious. “This is a _Crocus Sativus_ , a saffron crocus. Saffron is one of the most expensive spices in the world. See this little sticky-out bit here?” She pointed at the centre of the flower, “that's the saffron. It takes over fifty thousand crocuses like this to produce just a pound of saffron, which is why saffron costs so much. It isn't so bad these days, but it used to cause a lot of trouble; smuggling, piracy, executions. People even had a war over this stuff! It only lasted a few weeks, but still. A _war_.” She looked around to make sure everyone was suitably impressed by this. Eliot still just looked confused.

“So,” Hardison said, a touch too casually, without looking up from his laptop, “it's a plant you can cook with?”

“Yup,” Parker confirmed. “I suppose that's _almost_ as cool as a plant which can eat flies,” she allowed after a pause, casting a fond glance towards Susan. “Where did it come from?”

“It was outside my door when I left this morning.” Eliot replied, shooting a suspicious glance over at Hardison, who was studiously bent over his laptop, finishing off the last details Nate needed to start the briefing, and avoiding eye contact in a way which told Eliot everything he needed to know.

He decided to let it go, knowing that he couldn't make a fuss without revealing that it was him who had bought the flowers the night before, not Nate or Hardison, and that would defeat the whole point of him getting them in the first place. A minute later, Nate started the briefing, and the whole matter was forgotten.

If anyone but Hardison noticed the way Eliot cradled the flowerpot in his hands, as if it were something too precious to put down, they never mentioned it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> In my head, this is pre-Eliot/Parker/Hardison, but it doesn't need to be read that way.


End file.
